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Not just backwards, but what you see on the roads in North America is just the logical outcome of the same mentality that led to the financial/economic bust - boom and bust freewheeling capitalism - combined with a still mainly frontier attitude of guns and cars for all and individual freedoms at the expense of society. Just how is that a country like the US with some of the best universities and minds in the world has a rail system that provides a service between San Fransico and Seattle that takes more than 24 hours one way! Express trains in India run faster than that over comparable distances - and I'll bet Amtrak doesn't have vegetarian meal service options either!

A major part of the problem that is not being addressed in any of the debates on oil dependence and transportation has more to do with zoning than capitalism. We've created a society that requires so much transportation. The electronics industry I'm in for example is concentrated in certain pockets around So. Cal., none of them near our city, and some with no safe neighborhoods in our price range nearby. So if I didn't work at home, I'd be driving long distances. Actually, I did for awhile, and determined that I would never do it again. OTOH, most of the machine shops seem to be concentrated in a neighboring city a couple of miles from home. There needs to be some incentive for businesses to distribute themselves closer to where the people live. Some areas are industrial-only with no housing anywhere close that's both decent and affordable, and some housing tracts have no employment anywhere close. My sisters used to live in such a housing tract, where there were people all around them but there wasn't so much as a convenience store, school, or gas station within 5 miles.

I grew up in another mostly capitalistic country where a family's business was often in the front of the same building they lived in. For many people, going to work meant a 30-foot walk, and the customers would walk in from the surrounding neighborhood. Within two blocks of our house in the sleepy residential neighborhood, we could walk to two different stores that had produce, bread, eggs, flour, a few toys, etc., a meat store, a pharmacy, a post office, two barber shops, a school supply, and the mechanic's shop. A little farther but still within walking distance were a YMCA-type facility, bus station, taylor's shop, electrical supply, etc., etc., etc.. Those who owned cars didn't fire them up if only one person was going somewhere, because the per-mile cost was too high for them; so if only one was going, they might ride bike or take the bus. When we got back to the States when I was a teenager, I was appalled at all these cars on the road with no one but the driver in them!